Abstract:

Debates between feminists and trans people are often narrowly framed in terms of
inclusion and authenticity, or by questions about the extent to which trans identities
challenge or reinforce normative conceptions of sex and gender. The terms of these
engagements promote essentialist understandings of identity, difference, and community,
and neglect to register the heterogeneity and differential locations of both women and
trans people. This thesis examines several contemporary sites of contestation between
and among feminist and trans scholars with specific attention to the unspoken
assumptions and practices of erasure that shape and constrain these critical ‘border wars’,
making certain kinds of subjects and conversations central, while rendering others
peripheral, out of the question, or even impossible. Applying an intersectional
trans/feminist analysis to the conceptual structure and discursive contours they assume, I
investigate how such struggles, and our positions within them, might be deconstructed
and reconceptualized in ways that disrupt dominant Self/Other relations and, in turn,
make new political understandings and alliances possible.